Driftwood
by Ya Boy Guzma
Summary: Compassion led a man to failure. Failure led a man to darkness. But in his darkest moments, a guardian took pity, for every man deserves a second chance. Set before Sun and Moon and its post game story, starring Looker.


**Greetings all. It's ya boy.**

 **This is my first story, with my favourite games character Looker- I don't think he gets enough attention and enough stories about him, so here's one more to add to the tally about Looker in Sun/Moon (spoilers for the post-game, duh).**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

The roars of the Beast echoed in his mind as he walked. He couldn't escape them. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he tried to sleep, the same angry roar bellowed out from his memories. It just wouldn't go away.

"It's not fair!" the man screamed to the sky around him, blinking back tears as he approached the waves of the coast of Poni Island. A large breaker hit land and splashed his brown trenchcoat, flattening his black fringe on his head and mixing with the tears, but the man kept walking towards the edge. Nothing would stop him.

100kr's hand reached into his pocket as more tears ran down his cheeks, and pulled out the shining stone within. Once he thought the Audinite was beautiful, a wonderful Mega Stone; now it was a dead weight, dull, carried everywhere to remind him of what happened.

All he had done was try to show compassion. That monster, that dark seething mass of destruction, had been screaming as 000 landed blow after blow on it, trying to beat it back to the hell it had came from. 100kr had looked into the eyes of the Beast, the Glutton, and saw a being so lost, so confused, so hurt, that he tried to stop them from destroying it. Maybe he was wrong to do so; maybe he shouldn't have hesitated in the face of something so powerful. But he had, because he heard the pain in its screams.

At that moment the Faller, supposed to be hidden on a high ledge with her Audino to protect her while she acted as bait to draw out the monster from another world, had yelled at 100kr to ask why he had stopped. The Beast forgot its pain in that moment and raged, its fat body leaping higher than it ever should have been capable of to grab the Faller and her Audino in its pincers and swallow them in its jaws. The Police's secret weapon against the Beast had been killed, and all because he paused in compassion for the monster...

000, Nanu, had destroyed the Beast after that, showing no mercy. The guardian deity of his home island had showed up in the days after and beckoned him back home to become a Kahuna. Nanu left the Police's secret division with flying colours. 100kr, meanwhile, was saddled with the guilt of how the mission very nearly failed. He had kept his job, and had not been punished, but the damage had been done.

"I didn't even know her name..." he murmured under his breath, his voice shaky from the grief that still consumed him. His eyes were black underneath from the lack of sleep, his skin bruised and cut still from his encounter with the Beast. He was unshaven, unclean, unkempt, and unaware of the beauty of the world around him, as towering waves hit the Poni Island coast.

Every time 100kr paused to think, the image of the Faller falling into the jaws of that nightmarish creature, that monster he had tried to show compassion to, resurfaced in the front of his mind. He couldn't stop thinking about it, and the sorrow he felt was just too much. He couldn't live with the pain he was feeling, the guilt and the knowledge that he was responsible for what had happened. He didn't intend to live with it...

100kr paused at the edge of the cliffside and looked down at the seething water through tearful eyes. The depths of the raging ocean beckoned to him as the one place he might finally escape the suffering he was feeling, and the sad part to him was, at the time, he couldn't think of any last words. 100kr didn't know his parents, had no Pokemon of his own at the time, no girlfriend or wife or best friend he would miss. He was lost, broken, utterly alone and unable to cope in any way with what he was feeling, what he felt guilt for.

So he jumped.

The force of the impact from his dive into the sea knocked a chunk of the breath out of his lungs and wiped the tears from his cheeks, and as he continued to sink 100kr's last sight before he closed his eyes was the sight of the Corsola and Goldeen shoals making their homes around the coast, completely at peace in their surroundings. His lungs were screaming, burning, but 100kr was numb to the pain; he just didn't care. As the darkness beckoned, he closed his eyes, hoping at last for the escape, as his body finally gave up resisting and the water began to fill his lungs...

To any of the Pokemon watching underwater, particularly the pair of Bruxish who had spotted what appeared to be a free meal, what happened next was shocking. There was a twinkle of light, and suddenly the man's unconscious body was surrounded by a bubble. As the bubble began to rise, the Bruxish were startled by a purple object with a sharp fin that slammed into them at speed and carried on past, its target appearing to be the bubble as it leaped out of the water...

The waters parted around 100kr and the bubble he was in as it surfaced, as what had appeared to be some kind of weird swordfish emerged from the water at speed and hovered in the air just above the bubble and the water's surface. A purple finned shell parted to reveal the black arms, face and body of what appeared to be a mermaid. Around the new arrival, the Bruxish and Sharpedo that had been circling the human ran, startled and afraid as they realised what had come, and the Wingull soaring nearby surreptitiously allowed themselves to be carried higher up in the sky by the winds as a fog began to form around the area...

Tapu Fini, the guardian of Poni Island and the seas around it, blinked its blue eyes and looked at the unconscious human it had caught within its bubble, protected from anything by the impermeable surface of solid water. The Land Spirit's power was immense, and it had used this to form the bubble out of pure seawater, made so strong by the Spirit's magic nothing could break through to attack 100kr.

The guardian deities were known throughout the region for being capricious, tricksters, almost cruel at times for the way they acted towards the humans who worshipped them. But Tapu Fini, looking on the half-drowned man, felt nothing but compassion. It could see inside his unconscious mind and feel the memories of the loss of the Faller, the regret and the grief and the guilt that was consuming him after his encounter with a Beast so strong even Tapu Fini itself would have struggled. The deep blue eyes, which normally hardened in suspicion at the sight of most humans, softened as it saw into 100kr's mind.

"Tapuuuu..." Tapu Fini sighed gently, it's eyes glowing bright for a second as it used its powers over water to pour out the water in 100kr's lungs. Surrounding itself with an Aqua Ring, it extended a black arm into the bubble and touched its three fingers against the man's forehead, beneath his messy black hair. The bruising and the cuts from his encounter with Glutton began to fade, and while Tapu Fini took care to keep him in an imposed unconscious slumber so as not to see it, in this moment the Tapu began to heal him.

It's hand, sliding down from 100kr's face, found his ID card lodged in a pocket of his coat with the Audinite belonging to the dead Faller. Tapu Fini could speak human tongue, as could all Tapus- it was only telepathy, after all- but it struggled to read the ID on the card. "Loo-ker?"

'Looker' looked healed, physically at least, so Tapu Fini began to withdraw its hand from the bubble, ready to set him back on land and let him have his second chance. But it paused, and shook its mermaid-like head, its eyes closed; it needed to do more. For the first time in a long time, Tapu Fini took pity on a human. The man had tried to show compassion to an angry and violent Beast that was scared and lost and confused, and yes, that had been a mistake, but who could allow a man to feel grief for something beyond his control? Who could let him continue to suffer and feel he was in the wrong, because he had felt compassion?

Tapu Fini's hand waved over 100kr's face, and something appeared to glitter, as the unconscious man sighed and appeared to almost briefly smile. Suppressing his memories was an extreme action, and Tapu Fini knew this would have an effect; it didn't want to lead the man to lose his own identity. But as it waved its hand over his face, the grief and suffering disappeared. In time he would remember; maybe he'd even return to finish the job. But right now Tapu Fini poured its power into 100kr to save him from the pain, to free him from the guilt that would otherwise end him. The world needed more men with compassion to do the right thing and save more people.

The man stirred briefly, alerting Tapu Fini, but the Tapu almost smiled when it heard the man mumble "Looker" underneath his breath, before returning to the slumber Tapu Fini had imposed on him. Satisfied its work was done, the Tapu pulled its hand out of the bubble surrounding the man, and raised its head to the sky, sensing a direction. The world was a big place, but big enough that a fresh start was not impossible, and when it found a direction it liked, Tapu Fini nodded. Raising its arms to the sky, the sea around the Tapu rose up in a wave beneath the bubble and began to carry it, quite swiftly, away from the Poni Island coast and towards the distant horizon. A flock of Pelipper and Wingull, alerted telepathically by the Tapu, changed their course and began to follow the bubble as the waves took it away, making sure that it found its target.

Tapu Fini couldn't do any more for the man, and it didn't know what effect it would have. It didn't know it's magic would work completely, it didn't know what he would do in his life now. But it knew that the man had compassion, and it knew that it was the right thing to do. Everyone deserved a second chance, and by giving him a fresh start Tapu Fini had done that. With a sigh, the blue eyes closed, the purple shell closed up around the body, and Tapu Fini began to hover through the sea mist back towards the Ruins of Hope. It had done all it could for "Looker"...

(***)

"Hey buddy, are you okay? Can you hear me?"

The man in the brown trench coat opened his eyes and awakened to the sound of the voice. His hair and clothes felt soaked, his body slightly stuff, and his pocket heavy; he could smell the ozone of the sea and an almost tropical smell on the breeze, could hear the sound of Wingull in the trees in the background. The voice, however, was what woke him up. "Ugh..."

"Oh you're alive, thank heavens." The man in the trenchcoat propped himself up on his elbows, slowly, and saw a young teenage boy, a Trainer with grey eyes and a large hat with a white top so large he almost mistook it for the boy's hair. "My name's Brendan, you're in safe hands now. What happened?"

The man paused. "... You. I want to ask you something. Where... where am I?"

Brendan frowned. "Don't you know? This is the Hoenn region!"

'Looker' frowned, blinking, totally lost, and turned to look up at Brendan with a look of utter confusion on his face, brushing sand off his coat. "Hoenn...?"

(***)

 **And there we have it. I always questioned how Looker came to be in Hoenn on a beach with complete amnesia, as it seemed a little odd of Game Freak to do so; this is my attempt at joining the dots and linking Sun and Moon/ORAS together.**

 **Feel free to let me know what you think in review or in PM- I genuinely appreciate all feedback! Any favourites are also of course always appreciated- that would be very kind of you!**

 **Peace out,**

 **Ya boy.**


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